Corsets
by rwbyfics
Summary: Questions are no longer a part of her life; there are only forced affirmatives and a puckered scar over her left eye and corsets that crush her ribs into her lungs.


The corset laces are tugged without notice and Weiss nearly faints then and there.

The maid attending to her whispers out a soft apology but Weiss ignores it to steady herself against a bedpost. Her white hair hangs loosely around her eyes, shrouding cyan irises that sparkle with bright tears. The laces are threaded through the last gold-rimmed eyelets and the maid steps away.

Weiss struggles to find her breath. The corset is far too tight for her; it is trapping her waist and sending her lungs into a panicked frenzy. The black smudges appearing in her eyesight are threatening to steal her consciousness away, but Weiss blinks them away.

She stumbles forward but waves the maids and their cloying hands away. Weiss takes a few deep breaths. She stands with confidence and allows the maids to dress her, layers of pastel blue satin and lace trimmings and gold accessories draped across the heiress's slender frame.

Weiss's skin feels like there is a fire sitting beneath it, liquid flames slinking into her veins and making her roll her shoulders back in an attempt to trap the snake of heat from traveling down her spine.

Weiss is far too overdressed for a simple dinner with her father and his guests, but she does not question it, does not question anything ever since the first time she emerged from her Father's office bloodied and bruised.

Questions are no longer a part of her life; there are only forced affirmatives and a puckered scar over her left eye and corsets that crush her ribs into her lungs.

* * *

Weiss can't breathe. The corset is not helping her situation at all, but the addition of expensive cigars and spiced wine and that _goddamn_ violinist that won't stop playing makes her feel like she's suffocating, drowning at a dinner table lined with diplomats and doctors and dukes.

But she doesn't say a word, merely sips at her glass of wine. Her plate of steak and herbed potatoes is untouched; the corset will not allow anything to reach her stomach except for a few drinks. Nobody asks why Weiss doesn't eat – in fact, no one acknowledges Weiss. She is invisible at the table, nothing more than the Schnee name attached to a pretty face.

She pretends not to hear when the men bring up their sons and how Weiss would make a wonderful wife for them, conceive heirs for the unity of their companies.

She pretends not to hear her father heartily agree.

* * *

Weiss excuses herself from the table to use the restroom. She slumps onto the bathroom counter and vomits into the sink. All that comes up is bile and her last glass of wine. She runs the tap and coughs lightly, thumbing away a drop of sick from her lip and washes her hands.

Her face is ashy but Weiss cannot be sure if she is actually grey in the face or if her deoxygenated brain is playing tricks on her.

She swipes her hands along her dress, blinking a few errant tears away. Weiss straightens and tries to keep her shoulders from caving in before she walks out of the bathroom on wobbling legs.

* * *

The guests have left and Weiss is practically stumbling up the stairs to her room, two maids on either side of her grasping her by the hand. She is lightheaded and nauseous, but she has already expelled everything that her stomach has to offer. When she reaches her room, the maids strip her of the heavy dress and the silken gloves and the high-heeled shoes, a pair of sewing scissors sawing at the bow of the corset.

Weiss shivers when the cool air brushes across the goose pimpled skin of her shoulder blades. She is facedown on her mattress, lips parted and parched. She is drifting in and out of consciousness but once the laces are undone and the corset is pulled off of her waist, Weiss feels infinitely better. There is a spot under her ribs that has been rubbed raw from the stiff bodice and her chest aches whenever she breathes, but there are no lace and knots controlling her as if she were a puppet.

* * *

Weiss falls asleep almost instantaneously. The maids dispose of the corset, pretending not to see the blood that stains the inside of the garment. They choose not to speak about how the heiress said nothing of the pain, endured the suffering, and sat through an entire dinner without a mention of discomfort.

But Weiss does not know of this. She does not know that the maids murmur about her, how they call her a lioness. She sleeps, and she dreams of birds free from their cages and broken chains.


End file.
